Chapter 18 - Jasper
I’ve never seen anyone aside from Alphas care this much about the well-being of the packs.
I could tell how disappointed Tara was after the hunt produced nothing.
Since then, she’s been researching tirelessly to find a solution.
I haven’t even heard of half the books she’s been reading—I don’t even know how she finds this stuff. But I appreciate it. And at the same time, I’m worried for her. She’s working too much.
It’s funny, people usually say that to me—and of course I ignore them. Now I understand what it’s like watching someone exert themselves too much.
It’s midnight and she’s sitting by our kitchen table, buried in a book.
Her pretty hazel eyes scan the pages tirelessly; she doesn’t even notice me walking in.
The thing is, I did try to sleep. But I’m too attuned to her energy, I hear her every movement like she’s right beside me at all times.
“Tara—” I begin.
She jumps, realizes it’s me, and then breaks out into a smile.
“Oh my God, Jasper. You scared me.”
“I’m sorry,” I laugh. “I tried to scare you as little as possible.”
“Oh, really?”
“Should I throw something at you next time instead?”
She sighs, her smile is teasing.
“It’s just the way you shifters sneak up on people so quickly. I think it’s a supernatural thing, it’s like I can never see you coming.”
“Hmm,” I muse. “A supernatural thing, or maybe a you’re-still-researching-at-midnight thing.”
“Well, there’s so much to read!”
She looks exhausted. Never have I considered reading to be an athletic sport until now.
“If I tell you to go to bed, you won’t listen, will you?”
“Have I ever listened?”
“Fine,” I concede. “But you might want to get to bed ahead of your big evening tomorrow.”
What big evening?”
“You have plans.”
Now she drops her book, she looks at me this time, trying to hide her smile.
“Is it another hunt?”
This girl and her hunts. You’d think she wouldn’t be so excited about them by now.
“Not a hunt.”
“What is it then?”
“I’ll tell you if you go to bed.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not falling for that.”
I shrug. “It’s a surprise.”
“Fine,” she huffs, still concealing a smile. “But I’m not going to bed.”
I can tell that she’s tired and will probably be going to bed anyway. But being the stubborn human that she is, she’ll likely wait to go until after I’ve left.
“See you tomorrow, then.”
She theatrically sighs. “See you tomorrow, Jasper.”
After five minutes or so, I hear Tara sigh again, put down her books, and creek all the way upstairs.
***
There’s been a tense energy in the air all day. Not a bad tension, but it’s definitely there. A curious tension, if anything.
Tara had been asking me where I was going to take her all day.
I don’t think she does well with surprises, and it’s amusing as hell. Pretty cute, actually.
“Just give me a clue,” she said in the morning while eating her breakfast.
Usually, we move past each other, but today we’ve been in the house at all the same times.
Wonder why.
“The clue is that it’s a surprise.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Really?”
“It’s a good thing,” I said. “Can you just trust me?”
“Yet to be decided.”
At lunch, she cooked steak and vegetables.
“At least tell me what I should wear. I feel the elements way more than you do, remember.”
“Fair point,” I conceded. “Bring a sweater if you want, but I’ll have everything you need.”
“So cryptic!” She exclaimed.
It’s funny how everything she does amuses me. It’s the tiniest things—like how her eyebrows arch when she’s feeling passionate (or enraged).
At eight pm, I meet her on our front porch,
She looks beautiful.
Her eyes have been shaded a light pink, her lips tinted slightly red. She’s wearing a long black dress that hugs her hips perfectly.
The sun is setting, casting a golden glow that hits her face just right. All of her is glowing.
Plus, she’s smiling, and I completely forget who and where I am when she does that.
“Hey,” she murmurs, fiddling with the material of her dress.
“Hey.”
“Is this too much?” She looks down. “I just didn’t know what the plan was.”
“It’s not too much,” I say. “You look beautiful.”
It’s not even a question whether Tara is beautiful; her beauty is just one of those objective, well-known facts.
I’m still not sure if she knows it, though.
“Thanks,” she says, looking away.
I close the door behind me and step out onto the porch.
It feels good to get away from the pack for a little while. I’ve needed this break as much as she has.
“So,” I say. “Are you ready to go on my back?”
She cocks her head. “You’re kidding.”
Well, I could race her there, but I’ve already planned for something else.
I lead Tara to the border of our pack, where there are two bicycles waiting for us.
When she sees them, she laughs. “No way.”
“What?”
She shakes her head. “You’re telling me that you, Alpha Jasper, huge shifter werewolf, are going to be getting on some small bike?”
“Mine’s not that small.”
I’ve used this bike before, one time when I wanted to switch things up. It lasted a total of five minutes before I got bored and eventually shifted into my wolf.
But I’ve got a human to entertain now.
“Not in human terms but for you—"
I take a deep breath, trying to ignore how cute she looks while eyeing the bike.
“Tara, will you join me on a bike ride?”
She gives up.
“Yes.”
I lead the way through the forest, and as the sun begins to set, the bicycles automatically light up.
She gasps as that happens.
I don’t know if her perpetual shock is a human thing or just a Tara thing.
Either way, it’s funny how the smallest of things amuse her.
“Just to the right,” I tell her, as I lead her deeper into the forest.
“This isn’t an ambush, is it?”
“Who knows!” I call back.
It’s nice to be doing something different. Even if my body knows I’m going at a speed that is frankly offensive.
The path begins to narrow, roots curling across the dirt, and I slow my pedaling so that Tara can keep up.
I make a comment about her speed and balance, and I listen as her laughter drifts through the trees. She already sounds lighter—less stressed. I realize I like that sound more than I should.
Once we reach the clearing I was looking for, I push my bike onto the grass and gesture for her to follow.
I haven’t been here in a while, but I already feel myself calming.
The air is clearer out here, the space more open.
“Where are we?” She whispers, looking around in awe.
It’s my secret spot.
I discovered this place a few years ago while returning from a hunt. It’s a beautiful, wide meadow that stretches out on top of a cliff.
You can see the stars so clearly that it feels like you’re right next to them. Below is a view of the entire forest.
I drop down to the grass, leaning back on my hands. “Sit,” I say softly, as though the silence of the place requires it.
She hesitates, then folds herself down beside me. Her hair brushes against my arm, and I feel it like mini little sparks.
Tara tilts her head back, and when she sees what I bought her here for, her lips part.
“Oh, wow,” she murmurs.
The whole sky is clear, the stars alive and glittering as though we’re hurtling through outer space.
“It’s pretty, huh?”
“It’s breathtaking,” she says.
I wanted to bring her here because it’s the place I go to when I’m stressed. I want to, at least for an evening, take her mind off of everything. She deserves peace.
“You come out here by yourself?” She asks me.
“I haven’t in a while, but I used to. Coming here at night feels like a reset.”
“I get that,” she agrees. “Don’t you feel like you can reset in your pack grounds though?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love the pack, I love resetting with them in different ways, but sometimes open space and dead silence is what you need.”
Somewhere in the distance, we hear a wolf howling, loud and prolonged, and we look at each other with a smile.
“Almost dead silence,” I say.
She nods. “I used to think that I didn’t want silence. Like back in my old town, I’d do anything I could to avoid being alone. As I read my books, I’d speak them out loud just to fill the void.”
There’s sadness in her eyes, and that inevitably makes my chest weaken.
“Why is that?”
She takes a deep breath.
“If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”
“No, no, not at all,” she swallows. “It’s just that I grew up without parents or siblings. It was just my grandma and me, so I was forced to spend a lot of time alone. Then, when she died, the silence became endless.”
She looks like she’s about to cry. “Gosh, sorry I didn’t mean to spring that on you.”
“Don’t apologize,” I say. “I completely understand. I take it for granted sometimes, being in a pack, surrounded by people all the time.”
I want to hold her so badly that I almost reach out and pull her toward me. But I stop myself. I don’t want her to take it the wrong way.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s nice—really nice. I feel that when I met Lacey and was introduced to this magical world, I finally found a place where I could belong. A story book coming to life.”
I think about how horrible I was to her that morning after we first made love. I’d take it all back if I could.
“There’s good and bad here,” I say. “But once you’re accepted, it truly becomes your home.”
She nods, silently.
I want to tell her I’m sorry, that I’ve changed, and hopefully she’s seen that. But it feels like it’s not enough. That nothing will be.
“You know, my parents, when they were alive, were so set in their beliefs about the way the world worked. They wholeheartedly believed that shifters were superior to all other creatures, and they told me that so much that I didn’t even question it. The pack didn’t question it.”
“I understand,” Tara says. “It’s hard to break away from what you’ve been continuously told.”
I’m gazing into her eyes now, the stars paling in comparison.
“But I hope you know that I don’t believe in it anymore.”
“Jasper, it’s—"
“I know that humans are just as special, witches, too. We’re not better or worse, just different.”
She smiles. “You may be a little better at running than me.”
I laugh, “I think you’re better at reading than me.”
“Hmm,” she concedes. “I don’t know if that’s a human thing, though.”
“No, probably just a Tara thing.”
She smiles. “Yeah, probably just a Tara thing.”
I feel like I could kiss her, but again, I force myself to hold back.
I didn’t bring her out here to seduce her, have my way with her, or anything like that. I brought her here to help her relax.
She turns onto her back in one swift rotation, and I watch the stars continue to sparkle in her eyes.
“I think when all this is over, I’ll probably join the coven. If they’ll have me, of course.”
“Oh, really?”
I haven’t even thought that far ahead. It dawns on me that, as agreed, Tara will at some point be leaving.
My body completely rejects the thought.
“Yeah. They were the first ones to truly accept me when they found out who I was. I’d like to help them somehow, but I haven’t figured out how yet. But I know I can be of use.”
I want to remind her that if Willow’s curse takes over, we’ll all have bigger issues to worry about, but I don’t.
This outing is supposed to be a distraction after all.
“That sounds nice,” I tell her.
Why then do I feel a heaviness in my chest? There’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to let her go. I don’t want us to have to go our separate ways. But why would I force her to stay in a pack where she feels like she doesn’t belong?
I hold onto the hope that things will change. That my pack mates, who are already slowly coming around, might be able to convince her to stay.
Maybe it’s crazy, I don’t know. I just know that I like being around her.
“Yeah,” she says. “It does sound nice.”
Realistically, I was the one to make her feel so crappy. I was the one who made her feel like she didn't belong.
If she changes her mind and decides that she wants to stay, well, that will be totally up to her.